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How Tanya Granic Allen creates a problem for Doug Ford

By Michael CorenOpinion

Mon., April 16, 2018

Doug Ford has some thinking to do. Or to be more realistic, Doug Ford’s new team of political handlers have some thinking to do, because the man who would be premier is not big on the old thinking business.

His people are, however. They thrive on political machinations, adore back room antics, and having worked with some of them I can assure you they’re rather good at it.

Here’s their problem right now. Failed leadership candidate Tanya Granic Allen, the darling and champion of social conservatives, is running for the PC nomination in Mississauga Centre, and if she wins it and then the riding itself, she will be a perennial problem for a party that is trying desperately to appear populist rather than extreme, and folksy rather than ideological.

This is why Ford himself has been silenced, when at all possible, by his handlers. He knows little of policy, is influenced by the last person to whom he spoke, and is likely to say something in public that has little basis in fact or reality. As one of his consultants said to me last week, “If we could put him in bubble wrap, duct tape his mouth, and send him to Florida for two months, we’d certainly win the election.”

The Granic Allen challenge is similar, in that if she starts to speak out about what she genuinely believes, she will alienate potential support. Not that she’s stupid, and is far more articulate and informed than Ford. But unlike him, this long-term campaigner is genuinely extreme on issues of abortion, homosexuality, assisted dying, and contraception.

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Ford may be socially awkward with the LGBTQ community, and have some archaic prejudices, but he’s more gauche than partisan. He’s not religious, not especially concerned with ethical issues, and is largely indifferent to what is iconic within social conservatism. But Allen’s supporters made his victory possible in the leadership contest, and they want payback.

Do not be fooled by their ostensible Christianity. The socon Bible seems to have had the references to forgiveness and gentleness expunged somewhere along the line, and Jesus has become the Lord of Nastiness rather than the Prince of Peace.

Patrick Brown gained their support when he ran for PC leader, promising — as has Ford — to re-address and potentially scrap Ontario’s sex education curriculum. Once in charge, he not only abandoned all of this, but tried to remove socon candidates. They’ve hated him since then, as only a fundamentalist can hate.

Brown was actually strongly opposed to social conservatism, Ford far less so. But his advisers are more conscious of how badly any sign of rampant homophobia and militant opposition to women’s choice will play in urban centres.

There are, in fact, rumours that some of the ugly, condemning tweets from Granic Allen about Muslims that came to light recently were exposed not by Liberals but by people far closer to home, who would dearly like to see her lose her nomination, and are terrified of her being elected to Queen’s Park.

What is surprising is how softly this aggressive and uncompromising, yet able, activist has been treated by the media up to now. Those tweets were pretty easy to find some time ago, and her membership of the executive of the Catholic Civil Right League — an organization that regularly intervenes in battles over abortion rights and gay equality — was always known. Equally evident, and more damning, was the enormous support given to her by LifeSite, a highly influential media platform that frequently refers to “sodomites” and thinks that Pope Francis is an appalling liberal.

So, Doug Ford probably won’t be seen on platforms with Granic Allen, or many other socons, during the election campaign, and his boasts about scrapping sex ed, allowing protestors closer proximity to frightened, vulnerable women entering an abortion clinic for a legal procedure, and permitting doctors to refuse referrals regarding “personal moral issues” will no longer be roared.

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The Liberals, on the other hand, may well remind people of what Ford has said, and a Granic Allen candidature and even victory could work out very well for them. What a strange and nasty world is politics, what a strange and nasty world indeed.

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